SB 849 bars specified surrendered physician license reinstatement
Oct 11, 2026 edition · GC-2026-0232 · Published 2026-10-11 · Version 3 · Final
SB 849 bars reinstatement when a physician certificate was surrendered during a pending board accusation alleging specified patient sexual misconduct. That procedural trigger differs from the separate revocation findings and conviction grounds, so the account must preserve allegations as allegations.
What happened
California enacted SB 849 on September 27 as Chapter 654. Amended Business and Professions Code section 2307(i)(1)(A) prohibits reinstating a certificate surrendered while a board accusation alleging the specified patient sexual abuse, misconduct, relations, or exploitation was pending. The surrendered-license clause turns on the pending accusation at surrender; it does not require a later adjudicated misconduct finding or criminal conviction. A general statement that all surrendered certificates become eligible after an ordinary waiting period would miss that prohibition.
Section 2307 otherwise retains petition procedures and minimum periods for specified surrender, revocation, illness, and probation situations, together with restrictions during criminal sentences and pending disciplinary process. The nonreinstatement subsection separately covers board-found misconduct revocations, specified patient-related convictions, and qualifying sex-offender registration, and retains its narrow exception for registration solely from the identified misdemeanor indecent-exposure conviction. Those distinct grounds and exceptions require accurate primary-source disciplinary characterization; neither the act nor this historical source establishes the status or guilt of an individual applicant.
Scope and timing
- Authority status
- Final
- Applicability
- Potentially applicable
- Audience
- Health systems, Provider networks, Health-tech
- Jurisdiction
- California
- Recorded date
- 2027-01-01
- Date type
- effective
Why it matters
Credentialing cannot treat every surrendered license as eligible for routine reinstatement.
Recommended action
Verify primary-source license status and disciplinary history for affected applicants; do not characterize allegations as criminal convictions.
Sources
- SB849 enacted final textOfficial · California Legislature · 2026-09-27 · Source review 2026-10-11
- California Constitution, Article IV section 8(c), official Assembly 2023–24 editionOfficial · California State Assembly · Source review 2026-10-14
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